450 On the Kiranti tribe of the Central Himalaya. [No. 5. 



called Hang or Hwang. There are of course none 3uch now nor 

 have been for five centuries. Their village headman they still 

 denominate Pasung, equivalent to Rai in the Khas tongue of their 

 present masters the Gorkhalis. The pasung has still under the 

 Gorkhali dynasty, a good deal of authority over his people. He 

 collects their taxes and adjusts their disputes with but rare reference 

 or appeal to the Rajah's Courts. 



Unlike most of the subjects of Nepal, the Kirantis retain posses- 

 sion of the freeholds of their ancestors which they call walikha, and 

 the owner, thangpung hangpa. Each holding is extensive, though 

 not generally available, owing to the high slope of the surface, for 

 the superior sort of culture. The boundaries of an estate are defined 

 by the run of the water. The tax paid to the Government by each 

 landholder or thangpung hangpa (literally, lord of the soil) is 5 

 rupees per annum, 4 being land tax, and 1, in commutation of the 

 corvee. 



The general style of cultivation is that appropriate to the uplands, 

 not the more skilful and profitable sort practised in the level tracts, 

 and, though the villages of the Kirantis be fixed, yet their cultivation 

 is not so, each proprietor within his own ample limits, shifting his 

 cultivation perpetually, according as any one spot gets exhausted. 



Arvain aunos mutant and superest ager. The plough is sometimes 

 used, but very rarely, and the use of it at all is recent and borrowed, 

 nor has the language any term for a plough. The produce is 

 maize, buckwheat, millets, peas, dry rice and cotton. The general, 

 almost exclusive, status of this people is that of agriculturists. 

 They did not till lately take military or menial service.* They 

 have no craftsmen of their own tribe, but buy iron implements, 

 copper utensils, and ornaments for their women from other tribes, 

 and supply most of their simple wants themselves. The useful 

 arts they practise are all domestic : fine arts they have none, nor 

 ever had : no towns, and only small villages of huts raised obliquely 

 on the outer side on wooden posts some three to six feet, so as to get 

 a level on the slope of the hill : size small because the children separate 



* Jang Bahadur has lately raised some Kiranti regiments. He is wise and has 

 seen in time and provided against the risk of a too homogeneous army. The 

 Kirantis have of late fieely taken menial service with us in Sikim. 



